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The 9/11 Official Theory Box

8/25/2010

1 Comment

 
Like many children, I believed in Santa Claus. He came by my house, dropped through the chimney and left off presents for my brother and me every year. Until I figured out the reality of Santa, he was a necessary part of my understanding of Christmas.

I was in a box in which I so believed in Santa Claus that no one could convince me that the facts were really different. I only got out of that box when I realized that I had never taken another idea seriously.

When I mention my disbelief in the idea that Osama bin Laden planned and orchestrated the events of 9/11, I get a quizzical look from some people. They apparently cannot understand why I do not accept the official theory. I think that they are in a box much like I was as a child.

If one has conducted research and concludes that bin Laden and al-Qaeda committed the crimes of 9/11, I have no problem with that. Good research allows a person to seriously consider a number of possibilities before making a decision. Somewhere along the way they shed the box.

But I am convinced that a significant number of our population cannot hold a meaningful conversation about this topic because they never challenged their own conceptions. And until they do, they will not comprehend anything I say that goes beyond the walls of their box: the 19 suicide hijackers, the four planes, the phone calls from passengers, the courageous passengers who fought back and forced a crash landing of one of the planes in a field, etc.

This attitude fits in with an old beer commercial whose message was "It's it and that's that." It is the idea that we know what we need to know and that's all there is to it. It is too bad because new information cannot reach one whose mind is closed.

There is plenty of information for anyone interested in challenging the official line of 9/11 to consider. And when we consider new information, we throw away the box that traps us. Consider this:

The 19 suicide hijackers - who says there were any hijackers that day? The information about them came from the media, which supposedly heard from investigators who found documents about the 19 men in the trunk of a car or on the luggage carousel at Boston Logan airport, depending on which story you believe. Why would hijackers bring any information that identified them? Especially when seven of these names have been identified as names of people still alive! Throw off the box - the documents sound more like a plant to throw off investigators than what the official story tells us.

The four planes - who says that four planes were used to crash into buildings? Again the media told us the flight numbers and gave various lists of passengers for each. But no one has ever produced receipts for plane tickets, boarding pass stubs or videos of any of the passengers supposedly on the flights. Furthermore, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics records
show that only two of the four alleged hijacker flights were scheduled to take off that day. With four crash sites, it should be obvious that other objects were used in at least some of the crashes that took place.

The phone calls from passengers - What calls? Research has proven that cell phones are ineffective, at best, at the altitude that the flights supposedly went to. The idea that over twenty calls went through, even if a few were reliable air phones, is preposterous. The box opens here if we are willing to acknowledge the possibility that calls were made from the ground, either through voice synthesizers or by people to their relatives. Why would people call relatives with information of impending doom if it were not true? Consider the fact that a hijack simulation took place that very day.

And that story about passengers on United 93 fighting back against the hijackers? Without hijackers, that would be impossible. Where did we get this information? We got it from the media who got it through a representative of Verizon phones, who said she did not tape record the conversation with one of the men supposedly involved in the fight against the hijackers because she was afraid she would disconnect the call. As if a person with nothing else to do but call would not simply call her again?

Most people, I am convinced, want the truth. But wanting it is not enough. It is necessary to go and seek it. Just get rid of that box over your head and see what you can find!
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The Hartwell Manifesto - Creating Dialogue the USA Needs Now

8/20/2010

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The United States has no solid answers in response to the numerous problems facing us.

Unemployment is still double-digits in many areas. So we wonder about our economic security, without which we can do so little.
Two wars, Afghanistan and Iraq, fought for no good reason, continue. So we wonder about our nation's future in foreign affairs and about those who volunteer for the armed forces.
The government will still not release relevant information pertaining to events such as the JFK Assassination. So we wonder about the honesty of those who lead us.

We are a nation without answers because we do not ask the right questions. Political discussion, to be of use to our society, would revolve around identifying problems like the ones above, asking questions so as to determine their cause and use hypothesis to test for solutions. Instead, our discussion has been about whose fault something is and how it will affect the two main political parties in the next election.

Instead we hear people's feelings about political parties and candidates and outrage over who has done or said what. Two recent news stories, of Dr. Laura using the "N-word" on the radio and the proposed building of a mosque and cultural center near the World Trade Center, have stirred far more emotion than sense in those talking about them. We should respond to fear by calling upon reason. I really believe that we can do better than this and here is what I propose:

For every opinion like "Obama is not a natural-born citizen," we can use the reason of a summary judgment argument to determine if it is worthwhile to continue. In other words, we could stipulate or say for the sake of argument that the statement is true. Then we ask if it matters. Even if Obama is not a natural-born citizen, there is nothing Congress or anyone else can do to remove him from office. So we should drop the subject or put it into the political file for his opponents in 2012.

For every opinion like "The 'terrorists' are going to get us" we can employ facts over fear. We should ask who "they" are. If one responds the "Muslims" or "Radical Islam," we could ask for facts, such as any facts pointing to radical Muslims in regards to 9/11. Keeping accusers honest is imperative to keeping down the threshold of prejudice and bigotry in our society.

For every opinion like "Public employees are fat cats," we can address ad hominem attacks. Such statements stereotype a group of people unfairly and are becoming common after the City of Bell fiasco in which members of the City Council and other city employees arranged for huge salaries and pensions. The fact is that not all public employees are so well off: the average retired public employee receives $20,000 per year as a pension.

Reason tells us that it is wrong to attack those who cannot fight back. Good discussion is fair and affords everyone a chance to respond. Even if one wants all illegal immigrants deported, the scapegoating of this group or anyone without a voice in power destroys this basic tenet.

We need a dialogue, not a monologue. We can ask questions and listen to others to answer. In fact, we must do this or risk further dividing this nation based on emotions, prejudices and biases.

Here are four questions that we as a nation should answer as part of a dialogue:

What is the proper role of our government and how can we apply this role to basic issues?
Do we support the equality of opportunity and if not, to whom do we deny it and why?
How do we decide when it is time to go to war?
What is a reasonable expectation of privacy in this day and age of the Internet and cell phones?

The public should know the basics of law. Simple knowledge of legal rules like the presumption of innocence, that a law is presumed constitutional upon its passage unless a proper court rules otherwise and that the Bill of Rights refers to the government's suppression of rights like free speech and not the private sector's actions.

We can find the answers to what troubles us and make our nation a better place to live. That's my opinion. What is yours?
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How a Minority Becomes a Majority

8/17/2010

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What does it take to make a minority opinion a majority one?

A year ago Glenn Beck said that gay marriage was really about "going into churches and attacking churches... Then you also have to go into the schools."
http://www.newshounds.us/2009/04/13/glenn_becks_conspiracy_theory_about_gay_marriage_its_about_attacking_churches_and_going_into_the_schools.php

Beck also said that "I contend [marriage] is the building block of the entire universe. If the male and the female don't get together, then the whole universe collapses."

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/sex/139988/glenn_beck:_%27gay_marriage_will_make_the_universe_collapse%27/

But just a few days ago, Beck, in answering a question from Bill O'Reilly, said that gay marriage is harmless to the nation.

http://renwl.org/news/lgbt-rights/glenn-beck-says-gay-marriage-is-harmless-religious-right-goes-bananas

His recent comments came in light of a federal judge's ruling that California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage, was unconstitutional.

Less than twenty years ago, the right of a gay man to sue for losing his job over discrimination was hotly debated, thanks in part to the movie Philadelphia, starring Tom Hanks.The issue of same-sex marriage was not discussed publicly or polled about as much.

Consider the graph shown in a recent Vanity Fair article to see the history of opinion on this topic:

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/08/is-america-mature-enough-for-this-line-graph-of-gay-marriage-poll-results.html

This shows polls of same-sex marriage since 1988.Note the steady rate of increase of those who expressed support for it (and the corresponding drop of those who oppose) to this very day, where the poll shows a near-even split.

What accounts for this shift in opinion?

Historically, changes in opinions about civil rights have come slowly.For example, in the early days of the United States, most states only gave the right to vote to white men (the Constitution did not specify who could vote at that time).Blacks did not get the constitutional right to vote until the 15th Amendment shortly after the Civil War and women not until the 19th Amendment in 1920.

Other civil rights have also gone slowly in expansion, such as the right to marry inter-racially, the right to go to a public university of one's choice and the right to serve on a jury.All of these waited until the 1960s in some states.The right to vote was extended to citizens at the age of 18 (from the previous age of 21) in 1971.And over the years, more and more states have allowed the right to adopt to gays.

This brings me back to the right of gays to marry.The inclusion of same-sex marriage to the laws appears to be the next logical step of this expansion of specific rights to people who previously did not have them.


Expanding rights, then, is a common characteristic of an opinion that go from minority to majority.What about opinions that express the opposite?

Examples include gun control, term limits for elected officials and the forbiddance of allowing children of illegal immigrants to attend public school.All of these opinions have achieved a peak in support but have since gone down in polls and in becoming laws.

Interestingly, court decisions that went against each of them.The Supreme Court ruled recently in McDonald v Chicago that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment's right to bear arms to state law.In 1995, the same court found that term limits for federal offices are unconstitutional in U.S. Term Limits Inc. v. Thornton.And the 1982 Plyler v. Doe case gave illegal immigrant children the right to attend public school unless the state can show a substantial goal in barring them.

Court decisions have undoubtedly swayed the public opinion.Even talking heads like Beck can figure out that a court decision can tell them which way the wind is blowing.

But the reason why is not necessarily because people look to the courts to guide their thoughts.Rather, the court decisions usually reflect the general rule of law that prefers the expansion of rights and general tolerance over the negating of rights to groups of people.
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Reverse the Revolution of 1963

8/13/2010

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Complaints about President Obama's foreign policy can be heard among those who voted for change from his predecessor.  But determining what to do about Guantanamo Bay, the rights of suspected terrorists and even finding ways to end the failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will only address symptoms of a deeper problem.

Not even a revolution will cause substantial change if no one knows the root of what harms our nation.  We should understand that we had a revolution in 1963.  It would serve us well to recall how we got from there to here:

In November of that year, several shots fired from different directions felled President John Kennedy in broad daylight in Dallas, Texas.  An innocent man, Lee Harvey Oswald, was framed for the crime and the authorities missed several leads, such as dozens of “ear” witnesses who said the fatal shot came from in front of the president’s motorcade.

Enter Lyndon Baines Johnson, sworn in next to the late president’s widow, who still had his blood on her clothes.  As soon as LBJ covered up the JFK assassination by appointing enemies of JFK to "investigate" the coup was complete.  The revolution began and has never stopped.

Johnson went on to reverse JFK’s draw down of our involvement in a war in Viet Nam.  And after using false reports of U.S. ships being fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin to get “authority” to prosecute the war, he never looked back.  He attempted to fund social programs to fight poverty and the war.

Enter Richard Nixon who said we had to choose one or the other.  Guess which one he chose?

The war ultimately took the lives of millions of Vietnamese people along with over 58,000 of our troops.  The public found out by that time that our leaders had lied about the war thanks to the Pentagon Papers and other reports.

No matter.

Enter Jimmy Carter.  Elected after the only non-elected President, Gerald Ford, took over from Nixon, Carter said he would not lie.  But even the president who used military force least often among recent presidents got us involved in a covert war in Afghanistan.  He shipped weapons illegally through Pakistan to a group of people who fought alongside Osama bin Laden.

We had to stop the communists!

But the CIA wanted more covert action to fight the communists in Nicaragua.  Carter wouldn’t do it.  Not a problem.  The revolution continued with some new leaders.

Enter Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.  Reagan was the front man who talked tough about Iran who held our people hostage.  Bush was the guy in the back room making deals with the Ayatollah by sending him weapons in exchange for a delay in the release of the hostages.

Since then, we have continued with a succession of presidents who have kept the military happy.  Bill Clinton went for Somalia and Bosnia, while George W. Bush used a false 9/11 story about terrorists as a pretext for invading Afghanistan and Iraq.  Now Obama has kept the war drums going in both nations.

People such as military generals, arms contractors, politicians, those with stock in the contractors and the idiots who wave the flag no matter what have a major hand in this problem. They make up the "War Party." Though a minority, they have conned the rest of us into accepting a new kind of war.

Instead of fighting wars that we could win or even battle to a draw (like the Korean War), we started getting involved in wars for the sake of fighting wars.


Of course that sounds like unwise policy, so:

The War Party has employed phony arguments like Tonkin and 9/11 and phony enemies like bin Laden.

They have factored the phrase "national security" into public announcements of decisions but no one ever says what it means.

They told us we had to stop the "domino effect" in Viet Nam, but even though we lost South Viet Nam, the dominos did not fall.


They told us that we had to oppose the communists who don’t believe in freedom though South Vietnamese, our allies, never held free elections during the time we occupied their nation.

They told us Saddam Hussein was an ally, then they later said he was another “Hitler.”

They have told us both China and Cuba are evil communists, but that it is OK to trade with China but not Cuba.

They have told us bin Laden did 9/11 but fail to tell us that they have never indicted him for it. 

They told us that we must be “tough on terrorists” while they traded arms to try to free them.

 

We cannot understand change without understand what got us where we are.  Ignorance of history and its consequences is far more of any enemy than President Obama or any politician could ever be.

We could say we are victims of the War Party but by tolerating them we become accomplices to their greed.   Understanding our own role in perpetuating the revolution is the first step in causing its demise.

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The Social Utility of Watching Professional Football

8/9/2010

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You will find this chapter in Dean T. Hartwell's upcoming book A Fan's Folklore: Six Seasons of Triumph, Tragedy and Tough Luck out NOW!
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The Gospel of Dean: the Myth of Hell Keeps Christianity Alive

8/7/2010

4 Comments

 
  I had a vision.

It was Judgment Day.  I was standing before the Christian God.


He asked me why I had not believed in Him or in His Son.

I said that I used the mind I had and read the Bible twice.  I determined that Christian belief made no sense to me.

The Christian belief asked me to believe that the most important thing in life was in believing that the Christian God had a Son who died and came back to life about 2,000 years before I was born.  I did not think that any afterlife should depend on whether I accepted this idea.

I also did not accept the concept of sin.  I believed that in my life I had developed my own idea of what was right and what was wrong and had done some of both.  The costs I have paid for my wrongs were my own and I did not want anyone to save me.

The Christian God said: “I gave you life.  You rejected my message of Grace through my Son.”

I said that I was prepared to face the consequences for the life I had lived and for not accepting the story of Christ.

The Christian God then said:  You must go to the place of everlasting punishment."

I looked at some distance at the gates of hell.


I told Him I thought there was a fate much worse.  It is the fate of those who surrender their integrity for something they do not even believe in.

I told him I decided not to change my beliefs just to gain something, even heaven, or to please someone, even Him.

Then He disappeared.


As I moved toward the gates, I thought about my life.

It had been good.  It had its ups and downs.  If I could sum it up, I would just say I had been myself.

There was a tap on my shoulder.  I looked around and saw three people.

A man told me he lived before the time of Christ.

A woman told me she was a practicing Jew.

I looked closely at the third person, a man who looked familiar from pictures I had once seen.  He extended his hand to me and identified himself.

“Charles Darwin.”

I smiled and shook his hand.

He laughed and said, “And to think, I gave up studying at the seminary for this.”

I asked him, “How many people going to heaven actually read the Bible or understood the Golden Rule?”

By this time, there was a crowd of us near the gates.  We commented on how the closer we got to hell, the lower the flames burned.

One person said, “When the Christian preachers spoke of hell, it sounded like an inferno.  This fire couldn’t burn a stack of paper.”

I reached out to the fire and touched it.  The flame reached my hand but fizzled out.

Many others in the group touched fire and got the same result.  We all looked at one another.  Suddenly it made sense.

Hell would always exist for people who need an excuse not to reason.

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